CBI Boarding School
by dcfsproduct
Summary: The team is in high school at a boarding school called CBI. Story from the perspective of each person in the team, also their siblings (i.e. Tommy, ect.) Very AU, slightly OOC and will have dark themes like child abuse and probably swearing.
1. Teresa Lisbon: Origins

Authors Note: To the reader who are not from America or don't know what AP classes are, they are Advanced Placement college classes that you take in high school to get college credit and are very hard and some students take one or two in their senior year.

This story is going to cover the life stories of the team in a very AU way. Enjoy! R&amp;R :)

Teresa Lisbon sighed as she looked at her new schedule for the term. English and science, her two hardest subjects were first. She looked down her list and saw, happily, that she had made Honors Advanced Math. This class was usually reserved for exceptional seniors but here she was, a sophomore who had skipped a grade in the most advance math class CBI offered.

Teresa attended College-prep Boarding Institute, or CBI as it was referred. It was a boarding school offered a wide range of classes for all types of students. It was mainly for high school, but it also had a small program for sixth through eighth grade students. It was unique because it had many gifted students in art classes, music classes, academics and sports as well as other students of all capabilities. Teresa fit in the category of academically talented. She did run track decently fast, she played the violin decently and her art skills could have been worse but she was extraordinarily sharp and clever. The rest of her schedule included AP Calculus, AP Chemistry, Advanced Orchestra, Honors Physics and Honors Junior Year English.

She folded her schedule in half and stuffed it into the book she was carrying. She had been sitting on the steps outside the Main Building, reading the Great Gatsby and drinking a soda when Mr. Wainwright, her English teacher from freshman year exit the building.

"Hello, Teresa!" he said pleasantly from behind a large cardboard package in his arms. Teresa had been one of his favorite students because of her diligence and knowledge.

"What book do you have there?" He inquired. She held up the book cover for him to see. "Ah, F. Scott Fitzgerald. Excellent, excellent. Well, I'd love to chat but I'm on my way to the dormitories to distribute next term's schedules." He glanced around then said, "Tell you what. There's going to be long lines. How about I give you your's right now?"

"Thanks, Mr. Wainwright!" said Teresa.

"No problem for my favorite student!" He called over his shoulder as started the walk to the dormitories on the other side of the campus.

The doors opened again and Teresa´s younger brother, Tommy, came out.

¨I´m hungry.¨ Tommy sat down next to his sister on the steps.

Across the road from where Tommy and Teresa was sitting was the middle school campus, a small circle of dormitory houses surrounding a playground. Teresa watched as a white van unloaded the new middle school students and their families to tour the school. Teresa had many mixed emotions as she watched the kids interacting with their parents. She'd had had it tough when it came to families.

Teresa Lisbon had been though a lot. Her mother had died in a drunk driving accident when she was 11. After her mother's death, her father had fallen into a deep depression and turned to alcohol to relieve his grief. His drinking caused him to spiral out of control and go after Teresa and her brothers in drunken rages. Eleven and a half year old Teresa often took the brunt of his wrath to protect her younger brother from their father's fists. She hid her bruises well enough until two years later, when a teacher called child services.

The four Lisbon kids were put into the same foster home. Their new home was far from perfect. It was in one of the worst neighborhoods in the city. Their foster family already had two biological children and a foster child by the time the Lisbons arrived. Her foster father, Henry, was violent towards the boys but never the girls. Even when Teresa stood in front of her ten-year-old brother Tommy or her four-year-old twin brothers Peter and Danny, Henry wouldn't hit her. Diane, one of the other foster kids, however told a different story.

"He comes in our room at night. The older girl, Lucy, used to have me sleep against the wall to protect me when he came. But shes a big girl now, she moved out. She's coming to get me soon." Diane was eight when she first came to the foster home. Her father killed her mother when she had tried to file for divorce. She was also eight when she lost her virginity to Henry. Teresa was luckier. She was twelve and a half.

It only took three weeks for Child Services to be called when little Danny came to school with a black eye that he got from "tripping over his toys". This time, Teresa was prepared. She presented information to the social workers about different boarding schools. The twins were sent to a boarding school for younger children. Tommy was sent to a group home. Teresa took a placement test. It was then that her remarkable intelligence was noticed. She had tested not only out of eighth grade, but she had nearly passed out of ninth as well, despite being barely 13 and having had a very sporadic education over the past two years. She was given a full scholarship to CBI and immediately entered into the Honors Program, where she flourished.

She called her brothers often encouraging them, especially Tommy, to work hard in school to get a scholarship to the middle school program at CBI. She had spent her most recent two week break between terms to visit her brothers at their various homes. It took her two days to get to Peter and Danny's school. She had taken various city buses to get to the edge of Norseville, the city where CBI was. Then she bought a bus ticket to Hamilton, where Peter and Danny lived. She arrived in Hamilton at 3:00 AM, got a bed at a cheap inn and fell asleep before her head landed on the pillow in the musty room.

She had been satisfied with Peter and Danny's school. They were now six and in kindergarten. She felt bad that they had no family or parent to visit them. Most of the kids were taken home every weekend or so and visited at least once a week.

"Tony's mommy takes him out every Sunday." said Danny. Teresa and Danny were sitting on the floor in his bedroom. It was cosy, with three sets of bunk beds and brightly colored sheets. The door was covered in drawings and A+ worksheets. Each child had a small shelf on the headboard of their beds. Teresa noticed that all of the kids had several framed photos of family on their shelves. Danny only had a box of crayons and an action figure.

"Tony's mom is nice. She took me with Tony last week and we got french fries and played at a park. Everyone's parents come and take their kid home during the weekend. Does that happen at your school?"

"No." said Teresa. "I go to a big kid school. We get two weeks off at the end of a term and three days half way through."

"Well, maybe could you come and visit us sometime?"

"I'll try, kiddo." She said, ruffling his hair as she stood up to see Peter's room. Peter was eager to show her his goldfish in a jar that he kept by his bed.

"I named him Eric." he said quietly.

"Why?" Eric was the name of their father.

"Because he is nice and he never says bad things or hits or throws or drinks beer. And he's always here. He doesn't leave me alone to go to his own school." Peter ran out of the room.

Teresa's visit to Tommy in the group home had been more disheartening. The group home was run on public funds so it was rather run down. The uniform was issued navy blue cotton T-shirt and shorts. They looked like Teresa's old uniform from the gym class that she so often skipped to avoid questions about bruises. Teresa was saddened when she saw Tommy with the group of other troubled kids in the uniforms looking like prisoners. Unlike the twins's home, the group home was all foster kids, traumatized and hurt children, many who where orphans.

"How are you doing in school?" She asked, anxiously. Tommy's face lit up.

"Great!" He answered, excitedly. "I made first honors for all of my classes and my math teacher is skipping me up to the seventh-grade algebra 1 class. Mike says that I'm the first kid from the Home to be in that advanced in math!"

"So you spend a lot of time on your studies?" She asked, happily.

"Ron drives the Home kids to the school bus stop and I spend the whole ride studying."

"So, like I said on the phone last week, I'm taking you with me back tomorrow to my school to take the entrance exam at CBI. If you pass, you'll get to be in the middle school program." Tommy nodded.

"Anything to get me out of this dump."

"I heard that they're making you go to counseling at your school." Tommy's face darkened.

"I hate it." said Tommy. "They think they're so smart, always asking me questions, trying to get me to talk. I know what they are doing. They're trying to figure out what type of social disorder I have. Trying to see if I'm bipolar or if I have anxiety disorder or some other kind of shit because of dad. I wish they'd leave me alone."

"Me too, bud." She said quietly. "I'd like a little bit of that, too.


	2. Grace Van Pelt: Origins

Grace Van Pelt stepped out of the shower. Steam clouded the mirror as she searched the large room for a dry towel. Covering herself, she stepped out of the stall. The bathrooms at CBI were nice compared to her old school. Then again, her old school had been a public high school, not a private boarding school. She pulled some hair product out of her locker and thoroughly massaged her long red mane. She had just changed into pair of jeans and a bra and was searching through her locker for a top. Someone was showering in the second stall, so she hadn't heard the door opening. Marilyn, the blonde girl in the room across the hall stepped in the shower room and stared at Grace. Grace still had her head in her locker so she hadn't been trying to hide what she usually did from other student at CBI. On her side and her back were two strange scars. She had what looked like burn scars and skin grafts on her back and two puncture marks that look suspiciously like stab wounds on her side.

Grace pulled her head of her locker and jumped when she saw Marilyn staring at her. Marilyn blushed and looked at the floor.

"Sorry, Grace, I was just coming in for...I needed my..my..." She stuttered nevously.

"No, its fine, Marilyn, I'm just changing..." Grace was hiding her upper half with a damp towel. The two girls stood for a second in awkward silence until Marilyn grabbed a hairbrush out of her locker, muttered 'sorry' and dashed out the door. Grace turned toward the large mirror, wiped the steam off with her hand and looked at her reflection. Unshed tears shone in her eyes as she touched the skin graft that didn't hurt anymore.

She had tried so hard to hide it from her fellow students. She was the awkward new kid, transferring to CBI halfway through her sophomore year. Teresa, her roomate, had walked in on her changing once. She expected Teresa to judge her, to tease her or at the very least, to treat her differently but she hadn't. She quietly whispered that she understood and hugged Grace. Grace didn't believe her until one day, she walked in on Teresa in the same way Marilyn had. Teresa was wearing a towel with her back to the door and Grace saw crisscrossed scars all across her back and shoulders and several small round little burns. Teresa had turned around, smiled and said.

"Hey, Grace have you seen that hair creme that we share? I think I saw Brenda Shettrick from 2B using it on..."

"She doesn't think I saw her back." thought Grace. "She thinks that her towel covered it." Grace awkwardly shook her head no and left the room to organize her thoughts.

As Teresa knew and now Marilyn suspected, Grace Van Pelt had not had the easiest life. Her life had started out well. Her father was a successful football coach for a college team and the family, while not rich, had what they needed and could afford several luxuries. Grace had an older sister, Melanie, three brothers and a cousin who had moved in with them after the death of his parents in a car crash. They lived on a pleasant, small farm near a small town. While there weren't many other children, but she had four siblings and a cousin to play with.

When she was ten, something happened that changed her life forever. Her older sister Melanie hung herself from the hayloft that she had built forts in with her siblings, using Grace´s old jump rope. She left a note explaining that she was sorry, it wasn't anyone's fault except their Uncle Perry. Uncle Perry had been touching Melanie at night for many years. He warned her that if she told, he would kill her, her family and himself. It wasn't until he told her one night that he thought her sister Grace was pretty. Melanie realized wouldn't be long until Uncle Perry went after Grace. In her note, she explained that she wanted him to be caught but if she told, he would kill her whole family. This way, only she would die and everyone else would be safe.

After Melanie´s suicide, Grace's life fell apart. Her family fought so much the eventually, they got a divorce. Her father moved out, taking her brothers and her cousin and leaving Grace with her depressed mother. Grace's mother, Marie, became a schizophrenic and accused Grace of killing Melanie. Marie stayed in her room all day staring at the wall and muttering nonsense under her breath while Grace cooked, cleaned, and cared for herself. Grace managed to keep her straight As and always showed up to school looking clean and presentable.

One day, her mother managed to convice herself that Grace was possessed by the Devil. She tied her to a bed, poured boiling water on her and stabbed her twice. Then, satisfied with her exorcism, she went to the next room to watch TV. The mailman was delivering the mail when her heard Grace's screams and called the police.

Grace was moved to a decent foster family for a year and a half. The family was very uptight and religious. The mother and father barely ever spoke to Grace or eachother. They mostly just sat around the house and read the bible. Grace tiptoed around the house until the end of eighth grade when she was convinced that she would go insane if she had to spend any more time in that house. She won herself a scholarship to CBI.

On the day of departure, her foster parents, Judy and Martin were sitting in armchairs reading the bible. Grace stood in front of both of them and tried to get their attention. When they didn't look up, she began talking.

"Um, Judy? Martin?" They didn't show any sign of hearing her. She continued a little louder. "I just wanted to say that I'm moving out today. I won a scholarship to a boarding school." No response. "I already met with Mary (Her social worker) and sorted out all of the details. I wanted to thank you for taking care of me all this time. " Grace wished they would at least look up so it didn't feel like she was talking to a brick wall. "Well, goodbye." She turned away ever though she knew they wouldn't look up to notice the tears in her eyes.

Grace picked up her suitcase, put on her backpack and was halfway out the front door when she heard Judy's quiet voice behind her. "God be with you."

Those four words had stayed with Grace and were the main reason for her religious nature. She wanted to avoid becoming what her mother swore she was.


	3. Kimball Cho: Origins

Kimball Cho was soaked in sweat. His back ached and he had blisters on his hands from where he held the hoe. He had been weeding the gargantuan gardens in front of the country club for the better part of four hours. He hated the stupid little hats and polo shirts they had to wear and he hated his stupid, minimum wage job. Every day, he had to remind himself that he had done the right thing to leave the gang, no matter how little money he made. He remembered the money he had made dealing ice. Ten times what he made now with Green Thumb Enterprises. He was fifteen for gods sake and wasn´t even going to school!

Kimball had first gotten the job when a friend of his uncle, Kionan Jiang, was in charge. Ki was nice, he payed slightly more than minimum wage. Kimball was fourteen and done with gang life. The Avon Park Playboys weren't pleased and Kimball was trying to get as far away from them as possible. Kionan hired Kimball even though he was two years under the legal limit and even lied to the Human Services when they came to inquire why Kimball wasn't in school. Kionan, however, also ran a drug buisness on the side and ended up with a bullet in his head because of it. The Green Thumb boys didn't have much time to mourn over the loss of their boss. Jeremy Holston, an African American man took over the buisness and things changed. Suddenly, he was working sixteen hour days in blistering heat for below minimum wage.

Often, while getting extraordinarily sunburnt and trimming the lawn for some fancy boarding school, he asked himself how he got here. He had started out okay.

His family was not rich and lived in a tenement in an unsafe neighborhood. Unlike their neighbors, Sarah and Jian Cho pressed for academic achievement. He would leave for school in pitch black by the light of the streetlights and commute across the city in order to attend a good school. The neighborhood school near the Cho family were dangerous and overcrowded, with very little room for academic achievement.

Jian Cho made his son's schooling his main priority. Neither him nor his wife got home from work until late at night. Kimball spent all afternoon studying in the school library, trying desperately to keep up with his father's increasing academic demands. The one time his parents caught him playing baseball instead of studying, he paid dearly.

"But Dad, its summer!" begged Kimball as his father wordlessly marched him into the backyard to cut a switch from a tree. Jian whipped him until blood ran down his legs into his shoes but the young boy refused to cry out. He bit his lip so hard it bled and tears ran down his face but he didn't utter a single sound. After he had been beaten so hard that there was a pool of blood on the floor, Jian grabbed him by the neck and shoved him into the ground.

"Clean that up and don't let me catch you fooling off again. Get your priorities straight and get back to your books. Playing baseball won't get you anywhere in life."

From that point on, Jian pushed him hard for excellence and perfection. He would force Kimball to practice the piano for hours on end, holding a long piece of wood over his fingers. When Kimball made a mistake, the wood would come down smashing onto his fingers. He would hold it next to his head while forcing him to practice the violin far into the night, whacking him for every miniscule mistake. When the restaurant Jian worked at closed down, the now unemployed man began to drink. Excessively. He would tie Kimball's hand's behind him, sit him in a chair and beat him with a belt, an electical chord, a broomstick, whatever he could find.

"No expression!" He would shout. "I don't want to see you make a face. Pretend like you didn't feel it." Down came the belt with a crack and Kimball made a slight grimace as it made contact with a bruise on his shoulder. "I saw you make a face! Didn't I say no expression? I'm doing this for your own good, you'll thank me later."

Finally, Kimball had had enough. He was done with having his father whack him with a stick and force him to practice hours upon hours on the piano and violin. He was done with "face classes", what his father called teaching Kimball to not change expression while getting beaten. He was done with his mother not believing him when she came home from work at midnight, even though he showed her his numerous bruises and welts and his swollen fingers from piano practice. He was done being forced to be in the top 1% of his school.

He wanted to play baseball, his PE teacher thought he had it in him to make it to the pros, but the was out of the question. His father had detatched the axe handle from the blade and beat Kimball so badly that he couldn't stand, then knocked him down the narrow apartment stairs. Kimball told the hospital doctors that he had torn his ACL in a baseball game but that didn't explain the swollen, bruised knee and the broken wrist, not to mention the black eye and the many injuries. The torn ACL was the injury that did it, though. It would take nine months to recover, and by then, the major league scouts would have already made their rounds.

He ran away in the middle of the night and joined the Avon Park Playboys, a notorious Asian gang in one of the worst parts of California. He was having the time of his life for the first few months. He had passed their "initiation" with flying colors, no one could believe his ability to bear pain with out so much as a grimmace. In fact, he never even seemed to change expression or show emotion in the slightest. He was a valuable member of the gang, planning revenge on rival gangs in cleaner ways than the usual, messy, drive-by shooting. His brainpower and careful planning earned him the nickname "the Iceman" because he left the tracks cold for the cops.

After a few months, however, the euphoria was wearing off. Members of the gang came to him asking for people they'd had the slightest riff with to be murdered. He felt like their servant and hitman mixed in one. His frustration hit a climmax when he went outside the gang house and found the leader pistol-whipping his girlfriend. Kimball remembered distinctly getting pistolwhipped as a nine year old by his father and saw red. His father would have been proud. Kimball's expression didn't change in the slightest as he pulled his gun, shot the boy in his shoulder and walked off into the night.

And here he was, fifteen and breaking his back so that some rich person didn't need to experience the discomfort of seeing a weed in their country club. The inequality of some things made him sick. Little did he know, his life was about to make a dramatic change.

The Green Thumb boys all lived together in what used to be a large shed. Kionan had fixed it up, fixing sheets of tin on top of the roof to stop the leaking and nailing several layers of wood and aluminum outside of the shed to make it weather proof. He had been killed before he had the chance to finish putting in a floor so the boys did it themselves. They took out the bunkbeds and simply laid down planks of wood, changing them every so often when they were too rotten. They even dug themselves out a fire pit in the center and lined it with rocks.

That night, he laid in his bunk with the other boys, laughing and talking. The fire tonight had been made with kindling someone stole from a storefront, not newspaper and cardboard, so it was still burning brightly, casting merry, orange light on the dark walls of the shed. One boy was telling a long joke and the boys were relaxing when suddenly the doors were thrown open and Jeremy Holston, their boss, entered.

"They're wanting some long term help, m'boys." He announced. "It'll mean a year at a fancy boarding school." The boys all sat up in their beds. As much as the enjoyed living together, the fact was, they were living in a shed and they longed for a comfortable bed, a warm room and hot meals.

"You'll live in the dorms with the kitchen and housekeeping staff and get three meals a day. Food and lodging is free and you'll get payed $15 per hour. Well, what are you waiting for? Pack your bags!" There was a rustle of activity as they pulled out their garbage bags, what they used as suitcases, as threw their few belongings into them. They couldn't believe their luck. Twice their usual pay and free food and lodging! Dormitory rooms, hot meals, this sounded like paradise.

Jeremy drove them up to CBI boarding school the next day. He had told the principal that the boys were all older than sixteen and high school dropouts. This of course was not true, Kimball was one of the oldest and he was fifteen. He didn't care, this was the best job offer he'd ever had.

As he blinked in the sunlight from the dark backseat of the van, he saw a dark-haired girl and a young boy who looked like her brother sitting on some steps. A teacher with a large package walked across a grassy quad. A large boy in a football jersey walked with a short, curly blonde boy. Kimball caught a few words of their conversation as they passed the group of Green Thumb Boys.

"And her red hair, oh man..."

The blonde boy glanced back at Kimball and flashed him a million dollar smile. Kimball, of course, didn't change expression but if you looked closely, you might have seen the corners of his mouth twitch ever so slightly.


	4. Wayne Rigsby: Origins

Wayne Rigsby was in love. Not the type of love that creeps onto you slowly. His love for a girl hit him like a truck. He didn't normally allow one topic to occupy his short attention span for long, but this girl had been on his mind for days.

She was a transfer student with brilliant red hair and pearly white teeth. Her name was Grace Van Pelt. She was smart and studious. Besides that, Wayne didn't know a thing about her. The only way he knew that she was smart was because he had taken to sitting in the library, pretending to read while discretely staring at her across the room. He loved to look at her, the way she pushed her beautiful red hair out of his face, her small little changes in expression as she read. He knew she was religious because she had ridden the bus to Norseville, the nearby town, to go to church on Sunday.

Another interesting fact about Grace van Pelt he had observed. She never had any family on visiting day. Wayne never did, either. He wasn't even sure if his father knew where he went to school. Besides himself and Grace, the only other sophomores who didn't ever have visitors were his two friends: Patrick and Teresa.

Wayne preferred it that way. One of his favorite aspects of CBI was the abscence of his father and the stress he brought with him. Wayne did miss his mother and on Visiting Days, he often imagined his mother coming off of the city bus with a picnic lunch for him and a hug and a kiss. If his mother wasn't dead, he knew she would come for him.

The police said that she had killed herself but Wayne, despite being only eight, knew better. He knew what his father was capable of, he had scars to prove it, too. His father wasn't like the other bikers with kids. Wayne had seen them punching their children like punching bags and sometimes even envied them. His father didn't cosy up to that fistfighting nonsense. Wayne was straightened out with a switchblade and a crowbar.

Wayne was a regular at the hospital. The nurses saw him so often, they didn't even ask him for reasons anymore. As soon as he walked in, they took him into the room, stitched up whatever slash he had, maybe a cast for a newly broken bone, and sent him on his way. Wayne was thankful for that.

He couldn't stand the teachers at school always trying to "connect" with him, trying to figure out his homelife. He even remembered a teacher trying to visit his home once. Wayne lived in a motel that had long been controlled by his father's biker gang. The teacher, Ms. Thatcher, had pulled in the the driveway, her tires crunching over syringe needles and bullet shells. As soon as the car stopped, she was surrounded by a few of the bikers. Steve Rigsby pulled his infamous switchblade and quietly said

"You ain't welcome here, white trash."

She was quick to oblige and screeched onto the highway. Wayne came to school the next day with his arm in a cast and bandages covering eighteen stitches down the side of his face. Ms. Thatcher didn't even look in his direction.

On Wayne's eighth birthday, he was sitting on the curb of the motel, stacking bullet shells to make a city, trying to ignore the screams coming from the motel room. He could hear the creaking of the old motel mattress as his father forced his mother onto the bed. A single tear ran down his cheek and he jumped up and ran as far from the motel as he could.

Barney, a friend of his fathers, stopped him from running onto the highway.

"Where ya headed, 'lil Steve?" He asked, his old, weathered face wrinkling in concern. Wayne was crying freely as he answered

"I wanna die, mister Barney." Barney walked him back to the motel and called the cops when he saw the red splattered window. By the time to cops got through the bikers security, the windows were immaculate and Felicia Rigsby was laying in the bathroom, razors in hand, cuts on wrist deep to the bone. Steve grabbed his son, who was almost finished cleaning his mother's blood off the bathroom and snarled

"Clean your face. You've got blood on it. And say shit to the cops and I'll chop you up and feed you to the dogs."

Wayne was removed from the motel with a paper bag full of his few belongings and brought to a boarding school for children, the same one incidentally that would house Peter and Danny Lisbon in a few years. After becoming too old for the school, he won himself a full scholarship to CBI, one of his proudest accomplishments.

At CBI, he was having the time of his life. He was starting quarterback for the football team, his grades were better that they had ever been and now he had met the love of his life and her dorm was right across the path. He got to see her every morning walking across the path, the morning sunrise turning her hair fiery red.

Only at night did he lay in his bed, thinking about his childhood, imagining how things could have been different. He had recently come to the conclusion that he wouldn't change a thing about his past because it had led up to his meeting and living right next to, Grace van Pelt.


	5. Patrick Jane: Origins

Patrick Jane was seeing red. He was breathing heavily and felt dizzy. He sat down on the couch to try and clear his head. He closed his eyes but he could still see the flyer inhis dorm's common room floating in front of his face.

Carnival! Fun for the Whole Family! Bring Your Friends! Food, Drinks, Rides, Games!

A picture of his old friend Roger holding Sunny the Elephant's rope and smiling was superimposed against a picture of the carnival tents. One tent in particular stood out to Patrick. It was a purple and gold tent next to a trailer, painted with the sign "Boy Wonder".

Patrick thought he had seen the last of the carnival when he had taken off in the middle of the night many years ago. It seemed so long ago but at the same time, it seemed like yesterday. Patrick had been blessed and cursed with a prodigous memory and could remember every detail of his childhood as if it had been hours ago.

Patrick was born in a hospital in a small town. He didn't know the name of the town, nor the date. His father had never bothered to tell him. He also didn't know his mother. Apparantly, she had gotten tired of carnie life and left when Patrick was a baby, but this was what his father, Alex, had told him. Patrick knew that most of what his dad said was a lie.

Alex hadn't learned about Patrick's phenomenal brain power until he was nine. Patrick hadn't ever been to school, due to living on the road. Alex never questioned how Patrick could read and write. Patrick had taught himself. Alex gave him a little money every now and then and Patrick always used it to buy himself books from little pawnshops in the towns they visited. Besides reading and writing, Patrick was better than most highschool students at math and read every book he could get his hands on.

One day, he used some of his money to buy a book with chess strategies and chess puzzles. He didn't have a chessboard so he drew one on a napkin and imagined there were pieces on it so he could visualize the strategies. Usually, he made a point to not be in the trailer when his father and his friends were gambling but he was sick and it was raining so he stayed. He sat in his bed reading his chess book and listening to his father lose spectacularly. The trailer was small so he could see his fathers hand from his bed.

Finally, he had had enough. It was his food and clothes money that was being lost every time his father lost. He asked his dad if he could play a hand. It might have been the beer but his dad laughed and handed him his extraordinarily bad hand of cards. In twenty minutes, young Patrick had won all of the money of the other three people in the trailer and two of them owed him money. They attributed it to dumb beginners luck, but Patrick later explained to Alex how he had memorized the deck and read the expressions of the other three guys.

From that day on, Patrick was the main attraction in Alex's act and they earned double money. However, Alex used most of the extra money for beer and was so drunk that Patrick started running the act on his own. At night, Alex would sometimes knock Patrick around, but Patrick didn't care. He could handle getting hit, he was rarely home anyways, but what really got to him was the crystal fraud. He couldn't stand cheating dying kids out of their money with a five dollar crystal from Walmart, he just couldn't. He protested every time they pulled it but his father managed to guilt trip him into it time and time again. He remembered the fateful night that he told his father he was done with the scam.

"You need me for the scam and I'm never doing it again. I'd rather die than do it one more time." Patrick crossed his arms defiantly and waited for his father's reaction. Alex finished his beer without taking his eyes off his son. He finished, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and told Patrick

"You're gonna wish you were dead when I'm done with you." He broke the bottom of the bottle on the wall of the trailer and advanced toward Patrick holding it above his head. Roger, the elephant man, heard Patrick's screams and ran in, pulling Alex off of Patrick, who was lying unconscious in a pool of blood. Roger carried Patrick out, leaving a trail of blood as he ran. Patrick spent a week recovering in a local hospital, during which Alex didn't visit him once. Patrick returned to the trailer with a total of one hundred and twenty-eight stitches over his whole body. His father was in another trailer playing poker. In a blinding blur of tears, Patrick packed his few possesions into a backpack as quick as he could without reopening his wounds. He looked in each place where his father hid money and stole all of it without a second of guilt.

At the bus station in town, he asked for a bus ticket to anywhere, as far away as possible. One ticket led to another and he found himself at the steps of CBI High. It only took about ten minutes of sweet talking to the principal to get a full academic scholarship. It took a bit longer to let them overlook his missing school records, health forms or legal documents in general.

He lived in a dorm, made friends his age and had meals cooked for him for the first time in his life. He had only ever slept in a leaky trailer except for the week in the hospital. His meals had consisted of carnie food. He loved his classes and everything about his life now. Only the flyerthat had been hung up in the common room of his dorm reminded him of his old life. He made a mental note to avoid Norseville when carnival came to town. He glanced around and seeing that the common room was empty, he tore down the flyer and threw it in the trash. He didn't need anything to remind him of his old life.

Wayne and Teresa, his two new friends, were both very smart and he guessed they didn't have the best homelife either. From the way Teresa flinched at sudden movements and pulled away from physical contact, he knew that she had probably been hit pretty bad at home. She had a very motherly feel which Patrick attributed to what he assumed was a history of neglect. He guessed that she cared for her younger sibling probably after the death of a parent. She really didn't have a feminine feel to her, so he guessed that either her mother was the parent that died or she had had to care for a group of brothers, probably both.

Wayne was a little more complicated to decipher but Jane could see that he had had a childhood on the road. He, like Patrick, probably didn't know his real birthday, or where he was born and had spent a lot of time moving around. Patrick also sensed the death of his mother, but he also saw that Wayne had deep guilt surrounding her death from Wayne's vacant stare.

Wayne and Patrick were roommates and Teresa often came in to hang out with them. The boys liked hanging in her room more because she didn't have a roommate, hers had left a few weeks ago. Patrick noticed that both Teresa and Wayne kept their essentials light and portable. They kept their most important possessions in backpacks. Patrick decided that they had had a history of either running away or foster homes. He ruled out running away because Teresa probably had to watch her brothers.

Grace Van-Pelt was a new addition into the scene at CBI. She was Teresa's new roommate and it only took Patrick a few minutes to decode her past. He saw similar flinching patterns as in Teresa and she, too, kept her most prized possessions in a small backpack. He saw a tragedy in her past that probably changed her life, most likely a death of a close friend or sibling. He saw that she was very independant and self-sufficient, probably due to neglect, but she also seemed to be the youngest in her family, so Patrick was a little puzzled.

Wayne fell in love with her at first sight. Patrick had to endure long hours of listening to Wayne mumble on and on about her at night in bed. After the first few nights, he just fell asleep though Wayne's never ending babble, smirking to himself.

All in all, life was pretty good.


	6. Chapter 6

Teresa was lying on her stomach in her dorm's common room, finishing up her calculus project. The poster was neat, organized, and had all of the aspects the teacher had required, including the extra credit optimization problem at the bottom and Teresa was sure she had snagged an A.

Suddenly, her cellphone began vibrating. She glanced at the screen and saw that it was Tommy calling. Knowing it must be important, she swiped the screen and answered hesitantly,

"Yeah, Tommy?"

"I GOT IN!" He shouted, gleefully.

"You did?! To CBI? That's great! Did you get a scholarship?"

"Full ride! All I need is money for the bus ride to Norseville, and for clothes and supplies and stuff."

"Okay, I can send that to you. I got a job on weekends in town. When does your term start?"

"Two weeks. Does that work?"

"Yeah. I can't wait to see you. How are your classes?"

"Fine. I got to go, Reese, I'm using the payphone across the street and I don't have any more change."

"Okay, Tommy. Wait a minute, what are you doing outside of the building? It's almost 11!"

"Bye, Reese. See you in two weeks!"

"Tommy!" He hung up. Teresa smiled through her annoyance. She was so proud of her brother. He had a hard time of things. Foster care had been a very hard time for him and she knew how much he hated the group home. In fact, he probably couldn't remember a time where he liked where he lived. All he could remember was when their dad was a living nightmare, their time at the crisis center, the years they spent in the system and now at the government group home. Hopefully he would like CBI.

Teresa felt uncomfortable that she had not shared any of her earlier life with her friends at school. She was careful to hide the scars of her body from the other girls in her dorm. She was well aware of the belt lacerations that crossed her back like a checkerboard and the cigarette burns that peppered her shoulder. She knew that her friends also had things to hide, because when they were all together, there was an unspoken rule that no one asked anyone else about their family. Patrick, Grace and Wayne never had anyone to see them on visiting days. Teresa put that together with Grace's scars that she had spotted in the shower and knew that Grace had had a similar childhood to her own.

Teresa rolled up her calculus poster, tied it off with a hairband and went across the room. She tossed the poster into her locker, went to her room and climbed up to her top bunk. Emily, the girl who slept below her, had pulled the curtain around her bunk and Teresa could hear her slow breathing and knew she was sleeping. Grace had her curtains pulled around her bed but Teresa could see shadows and knew that Grace was awake and reading something. Teresa tossed her sweatshirt across the room to the other top bunk that they used to store things, pulled the curtain around her bed and fell asleep.

Grace leaned against Emily's legs and fought to keep her eyes open. She was sitting on Emily's feet while Emily did sit-ups in preparation for the gymnastics meet. Grace and Emily were both on CBI's highest gymnastics team and they had a competition in Norseville during the coming weekend. Grace was trying to read her physics textbook but was so sleepy the words were swimming in front of her eyes.

Emily groaned and sat up. "That was 50, Grace, lets go to sleep. We can do the flexibility drills another night and I have a Spanish test tomorrow."

Grace stood up and stretched. Emily crawled to her bed and fell asleep almost immediately. Grace took Emily's glasses off before she crushed them, put them on the table and pulled the curtain around her bed. She went down the the common room to put her textbook in her locker and stepped over Teresa, who was working on some complicated looking math project on the floor. She put the textbook into her locker and stopped to look at the notice board. There was a carnival in Norseville this weekend.

"Hmm." She thought, "Maybe Emily and I can stop by after the gymnastics meet." She glanced towards the bottom of the board, where someone had pinned a newspaper cutting.

**College Prep Boarding Institute Panthers Face Rockford High Vikings in Football Final**

What caught Grace's eye, however, was the picture. A light skinned man with sandy hair was holding a clipboard and staring across the football field, his mouth opened as though he was shouting a direction. She read the caption.

Coach Michael Van Pelt hopes to lead Vikings to win in Norseville championship

Grace's heart began to beat harder. She hadn't seen or heard from her father since that last, horrible night in the farm. She glanced around to see that no one was watching her, then unpinned the article and took it to her room. She pulled the curtain around her bed, making sure that they were pulled completely, and anxiously read the article three times. There was no more information about her father. The football championship game was going to be in Norseville during the weekend. She stuffed the article into her pillowcase and leaned back. She tried to make herself as tired as she had been a few minutes ago, but all she could think of was the last time she saw her father.

_"__I can't keep on doing this, Marie! I can't earn a living for all the kids and take care of them, too! I work all the time and you need to take care of them!"_

_"__They're your kids, too! Michael, what am I supposed to do? Run the whole fucking house?"_

_"__Stop staying in your room all day, for starters, and actually make them some food or something. I don't know, I'm not a mom. It's my job to earn a living, not run the house. You've got to get over Melanie and be a mother to the other kids!"_

_"__Michael!" screamed Marie. "Michael, FUCK YOU! I HATE you! How dare you?"_

_The Van Pelt kids sat in a huddle on the top of the stairs, fearfully watching the scene below, Grace rocking the baby to keep him quiet. This had been a recurring theme lately in their daily fights. A few nights ago, Michael had hit Marie in fit of rage. Tonight, the fight seemed worse than ever and the kids were scared._

_"__They don't even know you! You're never home, you're always out drinking with your friends-"_

_"__Shut up, you stupid bitch, and we'll see who they like more. KIDS!"_

_The children froze and exchanged frightened glances. _

_"__Kids, get your asses down here now or you'll know what's for! Anthony, Jeremy! Bring the baby, too! Hurry up or I'll give you something to cry about!"_

_They came downstairs with caution and stood in the door. _

_"__No! Go back upstairs now! Go!" cried Marie. "Don't listen to this son of a bitch!"_

_Michael turned around and pushed Marie hard into a wall. Her head snapped back and hit the wall and she collapsed on the floor. _

_"__Mommy!" cried little Anthony and tried to run to her. Michael grabbed his arm and pulled him back so hard Grace was scared his arm would come off. Michael smacked him with the back of his hand and held him by the collar of his shirt so their faces were an inch apart._

_"__She's not your mother! She's a crazy bitch and you are not allowed to love her or talk to her at all. Do you understand?" He turned to the other kids. "WELL? DO YOU?!" They all shook their heads fearfully. _

_"__But…Mommy…" whispered Jeremy from the corner. Michael threw Anthony on the floor and advanced towards Jeremy who looked like he was about to pee himself. Grace shoved the baby into Brian's arms and ran across the room and stood in front of the six-year-old and shouted at her father. _

_"__Leave him alone! You're the crazy one!" _

_With a crazed shout, he grabbed Grace by the throat and threw her across the room. _

_"__Kids, come with me. You're not going to live with this bitch anymore." No one moved. "I said COME ON!" He kicked Anthony, who was lying on the floor. They all jumped up and moved for the door but Michael hit Grace so hard in the face she flew backwards again and landed on the floor. _

_"__Not you." He growled. "Stay with this bitch, you deserve her." He pulled the kids out the door. Brian was still holding the baby. Grace sat in the corner, stemming the flow of blood from her nose and wept._


	7. Chapter 7

Kimball could not remember a time when he had felt at such peace with the world. His meals were excellent, same as what the students ate, he lived in a dorm room with his friends, his fake papers stated that he was almost 17, though he knew that he was 15. He shared a bunk bed with Ruben. Ruben was only 13, but luckily was just tall enough that, if he kept his cap low over his baby face, could pass for 16.

Kimball had also started educating himself with the spare packets and worksheets he pulled out of the recycling he emptied from the classrooms. He felt mildly annoyed that he was at the school as a gardener, not a student. He knew he was certainly smart enough to win one of the handful of full scholarships awarded to disadvantaged students. If he could keep 100%s in all of his classes at his old public school, he felt certain he could at CBI, too.

Kimball had also started to recognize some of the students. He noticed a girl with pale skin, black hair and piercing green eyes. He could see from a distance her deep, hollow stare and couldn't help but wonder what made her look so sad and serious all of the time. Her two friends, the tall football player and the blonde boy completed his favorite trio of friends, from what he had observed at CBI. They were all quiet, friendly, and didn't have the sheltered and pampered feel of the other students.

It was 4:30 and the students were milling about campus. Kimball was by the dumpsters, heaving in garbage from the classrooms. Once the cans were empty, he stacked them back onto the cart and moved on to emptying the recycling bins. He reached into the first one and extracted a packet from the British Poetry class, rolled it up and stuck it into his back pocket. He sifted through the pile a bit longer and just as he was excavating a worksheet about the muscles in the knee (a subject which had interested him since he tore his ACL) when he heard a footstep behind him.

Spinning around, he saw the blonde boy.

"You do this every day, right? Because every time I see you coming back here to throw away the recycling, you come out with paper in your pocket that you didn't walk in with. Right?" The boy spoke with a bright chipper voice, rather like a chipmunk, thought Kimball.

"What do you want?" asked Kimball, his father's "face classes" kicking in.

Patrick was taken aback by the stony reaction he received. He was used to getting more wondrous responses to his observations. He tried harder.

"My name's Patrick, what's yours?" He held out his hand. Kimball entirely ignored Patrick's hand in front of him and folded his arms menacingly. His muscular, gardener's muscles stood out.

"Cho." Jeremy Holston had warned the Green Thumb boys to not tell anyone their first names in case someone got suspicious, did a little research and found that all of the boys were underage and many of them weren't even legal citizens.

"Cho. I like that." said Patrick, awkwardly putting his hand down. "But…but you hesitated. I don't think Cho is your name. No…" he stared at Kimball's expression. "No, its probably your last name or middle name. Hmm, why wouldn't you want me to know your first name? Did your boss tell you to not reveal your identity? Because I know you're not really old enough to work a residential job like this. Like, the tall kid, he can't be over 13 years old. But it's okay, not my place to judge."

Kimball's jaw dropped. This blonde boy knew more about him than almost anyone he had ever met.

Patrick kept on talking. "Do you want to sit with my friends and I over there? It's okay if you don't. I can tell you're uncomfortable with things like that and that's okay. You haven't been comfortable around people since…" Patrick stared at the slight telltale signs in Kimball's demeanor and took a wild guess. "since you ran away from home."

Kimball resisted the incredible urge to break Patrick's neck and simply replied,

"You're wrong." In his head, he saw his father screaming in his face _"Same expression! Same expression!" _He kept what he though was a neutral face and practically ran in the opposite direction, towards the workers dorm.

Patrick had gleaned some information from his brief meeting with Cho. He knew he was spot on with his guesses. He had seen a bit of a tattoo sticking out from Cho's collar as he had angrily stalked away. Patrick had put together a patchwork idea of Cho's life. Probably ran away from some bad home situation, joined a gang, quit, and began working for a landscaping business. He knew that Cho had been snatching recycled worksheets and packets for his own knowledge and admired his spirit.

Patrick trudged up the hill to his friends. Grace van Pelt had recently joined their group. Teresa and Grace were roommates and Wayne had not stopped staring at her since she had arrived at CBI.

"Well, Patrick? How did it go?" asked Wayne, anxiously.

"Runaway, 15-years-old, from Oakland, named Cho, wouldn't say his first name. He was in a gang for a few months until he quit, plays violin and piano, first baseman of wherever he went to school and…" Patrick rubbed his chin theatrically. "torn right ACL six months ago. That's why he didn't make pros for baseball."

"You didn't get his first name, though." said Wayne.

"Nah, Wayne, he got enough." said Teresa without looking up from her textbook.

"Ugh, fine." He slapped four dollars into Patrick's outstretched hand.

"How did you know those things, Patrick?" asked Grace.

"Well, he was throwing pieces of trash into cans that were far away for fun, had a first baseman stance, too. A gang tattoo, violin calluses on his fingertips, he had a slight limp that showed that the pain was emanating from his knee or ACL area but he walked in a way that showed that he was well adapted to the pain. The pain of a torn ACL usually fades away in the seventh recovery month."

"Are you sure you're not a psychic?" joked Grace.

"No, there's no such thing as psychics." said Patrick, suddenly serious.

Patrick, Grace, Teresa and Wayne sat together at dinner. As they ate large pieces of cherry pie, the conversation turned to their weekend plans.

"I have a gymnastics meet in Norseville on Saturday." said Grace.

"What time is it over?" asked Wayne. "Because its the football championships that evening and I was wondering if you'd like to come watch me?" Wayne turned a terrific shade of red. Teresa and Patrick suddenly became very interested in their pie.

"I'd love to!" exclaimed Grace, forgetting whom the coach of the rivals was and her plans to avoid him.

"Great!" said Wayne, exhaling. "Lets go to Benny's for ice-cream after our victory, okay?"

"Oh, I got a weekend job at Benny's" said Teresa. "Come and visit me!"

"Yeah! Patrick come too! Lets all get some of this famous Teresa Lisbon ice cream I've been hearing so much about. We can all go to the carnival afterwards. Did you hear there's a carnival coming to Norseville?" laughed Wayne.

"Will you come, Patrick? It will be so much fun!." begged Grace.

"Umm…" said Patrick, hesitantly. Going to his old carnival was probably the last thing he would ever want to do. He'd rather jump in front of moving traffic. "Well, I have a lot of homework to do…"

"Oh, come on Patrick. You never even do homework, especially not on a Saturday. What's wrong with ice cream and a carnival?"

Realizing that Teresa was looking at him strangely, he sighed and accepted the invitation reluctantly to deflect suspicion. He would find some excuse to avoid the carnival later.


End file.
